OEDIPUS AND ANTIGONE

Oedipus. I was unable to find the author. Source of the image.

The More London Festival offers this August a double feature of Greek theatre classics at the Scoop. FREE. The company is very competent and, though it didn’t give me goosebumps, there were many great ideas, beautiful moments, even some laughs and a lot of philosophy behind the fable of whole damned family.

Rather than telling the stories, I need to share what these great plays make me think of. Oedipus is destiny-damned. He can’t escape his own fate, even knowing it won’t help him much. So what use is for him to fight it? I believe in fate a little more than I do in gods. That means that sometimes I think I have a destiny, that whatever I do I will get to the same point, because that’s what belongs with me; and when I do, I do it with my ultraoptimistic view of life, trying to understand that all the things happen for a reason, and that in the end they are for good, that they are the best things that could have happened. So if there is such a thing as fate… Would I like to know it? Would I believe in what I’m told? Would I try to fight it? It’s like knowing about your future… doesn’t it feel scary, to know what to expect? I guess that the second oldest job in humanity is prophecy – which developed from Oracles to Tarot lines.

Antigone’s drama is totally different. Doom runs in her blood just the same, but what moves her isn't fate, it is duty. A duty that she sees so clear as to disobey the law -a completely unfair law. And she is the only one brave enough to break it, conscious enough to break it. Her duty, her values, her love, are on top of any human law. The unfair suffering of an innocent one is something that she can’t live with, so she chooses to break the law to be upstanding, in peace and free. And thinking of today, thinking of Greece, of my country and other places where the unfair laws are taking so many lives, where innocent people are suffering so much, I have to wonder: Will I be coward enough to live this meek life and do nothing? Would I die for an ideal? Will we allow our politicians to go on killing our kin, while we display holiday pictures on our social network profiles?

I hope this questions echo in other people’s breasts. I hope we decide that we can make our destiny and we can change how things are, and that we are not afraid of defying unfair laws, for what we have to win is much bigger than what we can lose.